European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

I was the only one who went on to the fifth grade, but in order to do so I had to go to Carpineti.

We stayed at home; my brothers worked occasionally, often as farm-hands for other families.

My older brother worked as a bricklayer in the seminary for ten years, before he was drafted into the army when he was 20.

My father worked whenever he could find work.

He only had a regular job in the summer, when he left for almost two months to go thresh the fields.

You can still see those machines around the villages during the threshing season,

and he was very good with them, so they would go work for almost two months.

My father worked for this family every summer for 42 years,

and that was the only regular salary throughout the year.

At times he would also manage to work for a couple of weeks, once or twice a year.

We were doing fine because my mother worked as a dressmaker and was able to earn a little money.

She was very good at her job and worked for a family who paid her well.

Nevertheless, we were nine in our family, so my brothers went to work as soon as they could.

My sister was ten when she left home and went to work in Parma for a lady who was living alone.

I went to Switzerland and worked there with a family for ten years.

I was the one who had to wake up my master at two in the morning, knocking on the door and shouting, “It’s two o’ clock”.

I was 19 or 20 years old then. He trusted me; he would go to bed at ten but had to get up to go work at the bakery.

So I would go to bed at one and then get up to wake him up at two. He didn’t ask his wife to do it.

Then my master died, and I was left there with three children, his wife who was ill, the restaurant, the bakery and other things.

All I knew was that I had to work. That was it. And I can tell you that you sure work hard under the Germans, isn’t that true?